Russian rule into the cultural life of its Muslim subjects. It was a genuinely Muslim reform movement, the goal of which was a modernisation of all of society. The superiority of orthodox Russia was seen as a menace to an "authentic" Muslim way of life, but this menace was also seen as self-caused by backwardness and conservatism. The main part of the Jadid reform program was the introduction of the phonetic "new method" (usul al-jadid) of teaching Arabic in Maktabs. Until then, the instruction had consisted out of memorizing Surahs from the Quran without translation. The Jadids also demanded the introduction of worldly topics of education. However, it is important to note that the Jadids were not secularizers, but religious reformers. Additionally, they promoted the cultural unification and "awakening" of Russian muslims through the adoption of a single language, Ottoman. The Jadids did not oppose Russian rule itself, but Russian attempts at forced assimilation as well as cultural and religious patronization. Especially the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly was seen in a critical light. The Jadid medium of choice was the press. The founding of Tercüman marked the beginning of an extremely lively Muslim newspaper milieu, especially after the Russian administration ended its opposition to Tatar language newspapers in 1905/06. In Central Asia, where printing had only been introduced after the Russian invasion, the Jadids founded Kutubkhana, combined bookstores and publishing houses. From 1905 to 1917, the total number of Tatar newspapers and magazines founded was 166, though most of them were short-lived. According to M. Pinegin, an Kazan official tasked with censorship, their ideological alignment was rather clear: "The ideals and aims of nearly all Muslim newspapers and journals are the same, and their orientation can only be described as Nationalist-Progressive". However, this did not mean the Jadids did not face Muslim opposition: Their reform program was not accepted by the majority of the Ulama. These Kadimists (Adherents of the "old method", usul i-qadim) were especially opposed to the theological reinterpretations of Jadidism and the attempts at rationalization of traditions and branded the Jadids heretics or youthful hotheads. The Jadids were a very heterogenous movement. Among Volga Tatars, most reformers were young Ulama, who had often gone to Russian schools. Central Asian Jadids were influenced by Tatar ideas, but consisted out of a bourgeois middle class created by a cotton boom. Khazakh reformers even defined themselves through their resistance against